Crusade – Chapter 90: A View Inside

Aperio looked into her Void, trying to take her mind off of the freed slaves and the awkward talk she just had with Laelia. It helped that there were a few things she had left in her Void that should be taken care of. A book on the Common the Humans spoke for example, and an identification card the guard Captain had given her that she had completely forgotten about.

Didn't he say the [Grandmaster] could make something more permanent? She would have to visit the woman again before leaving for Procul, as the card Lerendil had given her was marked with big red letters reading 'temporary'.

She absentmindedly spun the card in her hand as she directed her senses towards the River of Souls. The tiny orbs of light floating through it seemed to shine slightly brighter at her attention, almost as if they wanted her to notice them and step closer. That's new. Not only were the little lights more active, but they were also more numerous; all of them being ferried to a new life by the river.

Despite having more souls in her Void, the All-Mother would not grant the lights their unspoken wish. Neither she nor the world needed more blessed, especially not if their souls could be damaged in the process.

With a silent sigh, Aperio set her eyes on the mortals in front of her, the card vanishing back into her Void. Most of them were now eating the food she had provided, seemingly happy that they had any food at all. She could hear Caethya talking to them, and she took a moment to listen in. While not every ex-slave was asking what they should do, the ones that did were in the majority. Caethya gently rejected each and every plea for a command or directive. Do they not know how to be themselves?

Aperio had seen a few of her fellow slaves turn into nothing more than a husk that wanted to please their masters, a fate that thankfully never befell her. But neither did Moria budge…

The Beastkin had not changed much over the years Aperio had known her. The only differences had been the scars they had both accumulated as time went on. How could I have ever thought that was normal?

In hindsight, it was painfully obvious why she had been singled out for so many of their experiments — why she had had to endure so many procedures that had broken the other slaves.

All the torturers and magicians of the Inaru Empire had achieved was to make Aperio hate them even more, not that they cared. Why would they even need to break the will of a slave?

They had the collars to control them, something that was still practiced today if the freed mortals in front of her were anything to go by. Some of the less fortunate even had the runes etched directly into their flesh, a practice Aperio had narrowly avoided due to the Emperor's son not wanting his plaything to have such unsightliness carved into her.

With a shake of her head, Aperio stood up, vanishing from the main hall a moment later. A small mental message informed Caethya that she would be outside with Roots, and that she should call if she requires anything.

For the moment, the All-Mother required a bit of time away from all the new arrivals in her temple. The longer she looked at them the angrier she became, and the more she remembered of her mortal life. All things that would not end well for anyone.

"Are the mortals taking root in their new home?" Roots asked as Aperio gently leaned herself against the tree.

"Not truly," the All-Mother replied. "But neither are they supposed to stay here forever. I will not remove them should they choose to stay, but my goal is to help them return to a normal life."

Roots' leaves rustled in reply to her words. "The teleportation array will need your attention if you wish for the mortals to use it. I am barred from using it at the moment."

"Barred?" Aperio asked, spreading her senses through her temple in an effort to find the array Roots had mentioned. The tree only rustled its leaves again in reply, the All-Mother not needing more confirmation.

Finding the set of runes she was searching for turned out to be surprisingly easy. While she had not known what the formation was supposed to look like, the giant arch at the other side of her temple left little to the imagination.

Made from the same silver-lined black marble as the rest of her home, it stood taller than most buildings she had seen in Ebenlowe. Though it was currently not working, Aperio could feel an almost frightening amount of mana flowing through it, tiny tears in the fabric of reality connecting it places unseen.

"Where does it lead to?" she asked, her mind already tracing the mana that flowed through the tears.

"Every major town had a temple dedicated to you," Roots rumbled in reply. "Most have been taken over by the [Guides], though some are wrapped in the ivy of various other orders."

"I assume not all of those orders think of me as highly as the [Guides]?"

"Yes," Roots said. "The Order of Inaru follows goals almost exactly opposite of those you have expressed."

Aperio's mind blanked as she heard the name of the Empire that had enslaved her for so long. She wanted to crush those that had taken its place, inflict onto them what the Empire had done to her; slowly burn their souls until nothing remained.

She took a deep breath, directing her senses on the calming presence of Caethya at the heart of her temple. Watching the Elf help the other mortals served as a good reminder that not everything in the world was bad.

"Where did they get that name?" Aperio asked after a moment of silence.

"A misinterpretation of history. They believe Inaru to be a dead God they could revive when it was only ever the name of a few empires and sects that once existed on this continent.

"They also believe the Demons to be parts of their fictional God," Roots continued after a moment of silence. "Mistaking lost and tortured souls for a dead God is truly something only mortals would do."

So that is why the Demon in the forest bowed after I killed it? Aperio thought as she fed a bit of her mana into the rune reading 'Dawn' at the base of the gateway. She wasn't entirely sure if that would start it, but it felt like the right thing to do. It worked for the kitchen…

"What do they hope to achieve?" she asked, trying and failing to keep her mind from bringing forth more memories she did not want to see. "Revive a God that does not exist?"

"Perhaps," Roots rumbled in reply. "The more likely goal is the ascension of one of their own. They even tried to harvest the souls remaining in the Eternal Forest, not that they had any luck uprooting my children."

"Is that why the trees there could hurt me after I returned?" Aperio did her best not to think about what kind of God might spring from an Order that got its name from a slaving empire. Instead, she focused her mind on the task of gently guiding her mana through the teleportation array. A task that required more concentration that she had thought it would. Not knowing what the runes mean definitely does not help.

Her question was met with silence, only the ever-present breeze flowing over the sea of flowers surrounding her. The empty space in their conversation allowed the possible explanation of the forest to settle in her mind. …Do the trees have souls? "Why do you call the trees in the Eternal Forest your children?"

"Because they are my offspring," Roots replied after a moment of hesitation filled with the low rustle of its leaves. "After you disappeared, this world was cut off from the Beyond. Whenever a mortal died, their soul would remain here, doomed to wander the world until it faded."

Aperio could feel the tree lower its branches as it spoke, the topic obviously not one it enjoyed talking about. "I followed the directive given by you as best I could — tried to preserve this world. It pains me to admit that I had to break one of your rules, but the creation of the Dryads was a necessary step in upholding the Cycle."

Dryads? Aperio thought, her mind wandering to the [Grandmaster] and her suspiciously leafy hair and connection to Roots. She is also nearly a millennia old… "Is Miss Videns a Dryad?"

"Half-Human, Half-Dryad," the tree replied. "Her father was one of my own, but he had taken his final rest in the Eternal Forest centuries before you returned."

"Every tree there is a dead Dryad?" Aperio asked, her stomach starting to twist as she dreaded the tree's reply.

"Yes."

The All-Mother remained silent, her mind trying to recall how many souls it would have taken to construct the vast Eternal Forest."Why?" she finally asked, the idea of it all still seeming wrong — dreadful — to her.

"It was the only thing in my power that would give them enough time to rejoin the River of Souls," Roots replied, its barking scraping voice somehow barely a whisper. "Leaving them unattended would see this world overrun by them as they tried to claw their way into a mortal body to call their own."

"The Rage," Aperio mumbled to herself. Did Vigil force souls into bodies to see what would happen? The mere idea caused a fury to bubble up in the All-Mother, one that would have driven her to remove the stain that was Vigil from the world had she not done so already.

"The mortals' name for a gruesome affliction," Roots intoned. "It rarely forms on its own; a consequence of mortal or divine experiments."

"Disgusting," Aperio spat, a few of the nearby flowers wilting away. "Why would the other Gods encourage such behaviour and not work to fix it?"

"It is not their duty to care for the world; that task falls to Diskrye and myself. Some members of the Pantheon try to find solutions, but most are content as long as their power grows. Your absence brought out their true colours. But, as much as I wish to cull the weeds, I am but a Caretaker. Not an Administrator."

"Then I will do it myself," Aperio declared, a last flex of her mental muscles providing the mana the teleportation array needed to start. A shudder spread through the threads of reality, a large flood of mana flowing from her well into the runes that made up the archway connecting her home to the world below. Or worlds below. Aperio could not help but notice that some of the connections lead not to Verenier but to realms she did not know.

Before she left for Procul to retrieve more of her memories and tried to find a way of righting the wrongs that had befallen the world during her absence, the All-Mother had a few things to take care of.

Aperio appeared in front of the gateway at the other side of her temple. A brief moment later, she was joined by Caethya. Her disciple had noticed the large amount of mana coming from the teleportation array and asked to see what it was, assuring her that the freed slaves would be fine if she left them alone for a little while.

"Where does it lead?" Caethya asked, stepping a little closer to Aperio.

The All-Mother gently folded a wing over her disciple, a motion that was quickly becoming second nature to her. To Aperio it was like a hug she could actually tolerate at the moment, a gentle reminder that someone enjoyed her presence without expecting more.

"A great many places," she replied. "Most of them on other worlds." Unlike the System, her home seemed to know what she wanted, the connections to the other worlds slowly drawing less mana as they returned to inactivity.

She knew that even a mortal could step through it and the gateway would pick the correct destination.What troubled her about that fact was that she had no idea how her creation did what it did, and that if a mere construct like a teleportation array could somehow figure out what she wanted to do, a God could too. How can it read intent? Or does it use the System?

The All-Mother creased her brows as she let her senses flow through the space the System occupied, trying to find any connection to her home she might have missed.

"Is something wrong?" Caethya asked, carefully brushing her hand against Aperio's arm.

She pulled away from her disciple, not quite understanding what prompted the motion. "Not necessarily," she replied, having found a small connection to a section of the System that prominently displayed the runes 'World' and 'Link'. Does the System know what everyone thinks?

Somehow, that idea felt even worse to the All-Mother. The notion that her System could somehow read minds was not one she wanted to entertain, but it was the one that made the most sense. Everyone — everything — was connected to it in some way. Was connected to her.

"Did I make it so I would not have to look at it all?" Aperio mumbled to herself as she examined the black and silver archway in front of her. Her mana flowed through it happily, eager to be used.

This time, the All-Mother did not shy away from Caethya's touch, the warmth that had fled their surroundings replaced by a note of comfort in her mind. Her disciple carefully wrapped her arm around Aperio's waist, giving the Goddess a hug that was only answered by a slight shift of her wing.

"It's okay," the Elf said. "We are in this together."

GamingWolf

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